Stargate Atlantis Season 4 Episode 14 Aggressive Countermeasures
by Janus2
Summary: AU after This Mortal Coil. The Asuran civil war kicks off as the galaxy begins to get caught in the crossfire. Meanwhile the Ancients themselves seem to be growing tired of watching and not interfering while people suffer.
1. Chapter 1

**Stargate Atlantis**

**04x14**

**Aggressive Countermeasures**

Ikaros sat reclined in the _Avenger's _command chair, he was beyond exhausted, he'd been able to overpower the entire crew and jettison them into space. He'd just got the _Avenger _to a distance in human terms of a few hundred kilometres away from the cloud of Asurans before forcing air into his lungs and firing off a salvo of the ships plasma weapons in a focused firing solution, the explosions of Asurans was massive as energy coursed between them. Ikaros felt his shoulders sag and his eyes drift closed. _Focus, _his mind took on the voice of his late farther long dead drilling him on ship board operations he'd massed knowledge of many years before, Ikaros drew in the very dredges of his strength and plotted a course through hyperspace to the galactic plane, the last thing he needed was to be caught this weak given that that he was having trouble just flying, let alone complex combat manoeuvres.

The _Avenger _slowly moved out of its orbit as a hyperspace vortex formed in front of it as the aft engines glowed before entering.

* * *

Hossack ran through the corridors of _Biarmaland, _he'd just got back from the high council and needed to see General Korceanat immediately, he entered the base of the central tower and passed through the security into the prison cells. When he arrived he smiled, Korceanat was standing over Oberoth who was cowering on the floor, less than a shadow of his former self.

"What did Kashyapa tell you? What did he give you?" Korceanat's patience was clearly wearing thin; one of his hands was firmly inside Oberoth's forehead while his other fist was clenched shut. Korceanat rotated his head in a reptilian fashion as he withdrew his hand and turned to face Hossack.

"What's going on, have the ship captains we can trust arrived?" Korceanat was confused by Hossack's appearance, as the liaison officer he was reporting to the high council, Korceanat was trying to stall Oberoth's supporters why he gathered his strength.

"I've done all I can, I'm sorry but…" Hossack swallowed unnecessarily before continuing. "Oberoth's supporters have deployed the home guard to storm _Biarmaland, _I got here and raised the shields up just in time."

_Biarmaland _suddenly shook, Korceanat turned to face Oberoth before nodding and running for the control room.

* * *

_Biarmaland's _shield was raised, a glowing white bubble shrouding the massive city-ship as green particle beams from space born satellites fired repeated blasts at randomly generated points on the top dome. The tactic was based on the fact that Lantean and Asuran shields on city-ships reallocated layers of shield to where areas were taxed to reduce potentia strain, however _Biarmaland _was powered by nine potentia, together they were capable of easily maintaining power.

A volley of high yield orange plasma bolts slammed into the side of the shield as the massive bulk of an _Aurora _class warship approaching fired its forward gun batteries, the _Aurora _rotated slightly on its axis to fire its own particle beam, still to no effect. Adapting their strategy the _Aurora _opened its drone launcher bay and swarms of hundreds of glowing orange energy missiles streamed out and coiled like a giant serpent before moving towards the besieged dome of _Biarmaland's _shields that still held under the onslaught.

In _Biarmaland's _control room the white washed walls glowed a disquieting green, Korceanat and Hossack arrived.

"Report?"

One of Korceanat's technicians rose from his station.

"We are currently under attack by five of the orbital defence satellites and one _Aurora _class warship registered as the _Helios._"

Korceanat seemed relieved, that wasn't too bad, not with nine full potentia.

"Sir," another one of his technicians turned, her black coiled hair flying in an arc. "We are detecting the launch of a city-ship a few kilometres away, subspace spectra scans show three fully charged potentia."

Korceanat looked around the control room before nodding.

"Myra, please open a channel through the PA."

The technician nodded as she returned to the panel pressing a few buttons as the communications activated.

"Attention all personnel this is General Korceanat, I understand that you've all been questioning my decisions of late and you're right to." Korceanat looked at every one of the duty officers finishing off at Hossack. "For some time I've been aware that something was wrong with our society, the collective was meant to provide the union and democratic wishes of every Asuran, however we've spent the last ten thousand years under the control of Oberoth. We have a duty as the heirs of the Lanteans, yes we are their heirs, however we are not their only heirs, humans are another side of their legacy and we should stand by them to reclaim the legacy of our collective creators and rebuild what was lost more than seven million years ago when the Alterra fell. I won't order anyone here to do this, if you wish to maintain the status quo I won't fault you, change comes hard, whether human or Asuran. If anyone wants to stay behind stay in your quarters and we'll send you back to Asuras when we can, Korceanat out."

He turned to look at his crew once more who all nodded to show their ascent.

"Then there is much work to be done."

Korceanat strode purposely towards the control chair, lowering himself into it as the crystal blue panels glowed in the hexagon.

An ordinary city-ship became visible on the horizon as a cloud of vapour rose from the ocean underneath the city as _Biarmaland _pulled up half a kilometre into the air before rotating on its axis.

"_This is General Korceanat of Biarmaland to the commander of the Helios, you must not obey Oberoth's council, they are corrupted by power and would sacrifice us all in order to further his control over the galaxy. Join with us and truly live up to be the heirs of the Ancients."_

Korceanat's only response was weapons fire, he sighed in grief as he willed one of _Biarmaland's _weapons to fire, from the pier facing the _Helio _a red beam from the Directed Energy Transmission beam fired, without having to maintain a wormhole indefinitely the beam transferred nearly the full output of a potentia at once. The _Helios' _shields glowed orange as the kinetic energy of the DET forced it back, it only lasted for thirty seconds till the shields failed and the ship was instantly vaporised by the glowing red beam. As soon as the ship was destroyed the DET ceased firing.

However that was when the regular city-ship opened its drone bays, glowing orange massive coils of drones rose out of the bays moving above the shield dome before coming together in a single massive swarm. The swarm amassed thousands of drones before colliding with _Biarmaland, _each one was set to a different frequency trying to break through.

Sparks fell from the ceiling causing Korceanat to flinch; the physical distractions brought him out of the neural interface.

"Myra, how's our shield looking?" Korceanat could've accessed the data through the interface but he preferred the Asuran touch, absurd he knew but something about an Asuran was better than the automated systems.

"Holding for now, I've got them on a rotating frequency to prevent a lock on," Myra didn't look up from her display. "Overall Potentia charge is holding at a consistent 97%."

Korceanat nodded, taking himself back into the interface.

_Biarmaland _rose up to take the same altitude as the opposing city-ship, Korceanat swallowed before spurring the _Biarmaland _on, the massive city moved towards her sister ship, shields colliding, stardrives screaming in protest as the rubbed against each over. Sparks flew and consoles exploded.

"We can't keep this up for much longer!" Myra shouted over the explosions as a fire started, scorching the white watched walls.

Eventually the other city-ships shields failed, the _Biarmaland _suddenly without resistance accelerated forward easily finishing off the enemy city.

Korceanat felt the drain in power as he pulled the _Biarmaland _up into the atmosphere and entered hyperspace.

"Alright what's our status?"

"Minimal damage reported, hyperdrive's fully operational, we're on our way to your specified coordinates."

Myra turned for her console; her eyes showed that her news wasn't so good.

"Each Potentia is currently at a charge of."

"That's not so bad," Korceanat felt like he was missing something, even at that leven they still had the equivalent energy of nearly six Potentia, he knew that the kamikaze run had been a risk, but it'd seemed to pay off.

"The dampers have been damaged; our energy signature will be visible to half the galaxy, in order to affect repairs we'll have to drop out of hyperspace and land, to remove the modules to repair the outlet."

Korceanat nodded in understanding, it would make them vulnerable to anyone, Oberoth's faction of the Asurans or the wraith.

* * *

Elizabeth sat in her quarters looking out of the window at the Asuran rebels city ship, they'd all given up the ruse, even the Asuran who took Keller's shape had reverted to her normal body. John was helping to create defences, Teyla was teaching them to meditate while Rodney 'geeked' out. The Asurans had shown him how they created ZPMs and even Stargates themselves, and that left her… doing nothing. They didn't need someone in charge, they weren't negotiating with anyone and there wasn't anything else for her to do.

She got up from her bed and turned from the window to head into her en suit bathroom, however she stopped and turned, she'd thought she'd seen something but nothing was there. Elizabeth carried on into the bathroom; however she couldn't shake what she'd seen, for just an instance she'd have sworn she'd seen herself dressed in a plain black suite like she'd worn during her last days in charge of the SGC.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: To confirm, each of Biarmaland's ZPMs AKA Potentia are at 63.666…%, as they're set similar to how Atlantis' modules were set before Janus screwed with them, that is all simultaneously, so the energy drain is universal with all nine ZPMs at the same level.**

**For Ikaros, let say he's been planning something from the higher planes for a long time, it's just now he's had to retake his Lantean body to continue.**

**For the image of Elizabeth well that's just something that'll be revealed in time.**

**On the subject of energy the ZPM from the Tria is at 7.5%, when they stole the ZPM from Asuras it was at 98% but after landing it has fallen to 70%, while the naquadria generators were capable of outputting 45% of a ZPMs output, putting Atlantis' power total energy at 40.8%, oh and if you notice I've scaled Atlantis up slightly.**

**About the spelling and grammar I must apologise, I've just been trying to get them out as fast as I can.**

* * *

Ikaros sat back down in the _Avenger's _command chair, placing his hand on the cool refreshing crystal hand rest that connected him to the ships systems. It'd taken less time than he'd thought to recover from his energy drain; the abilities his species had developed over their evolution towards ascension functioned just like a normal physical ones, exercising them would increase their effectiveness and his own stamina however being ascended meant that he'd already lost ground.

The _Avenger's _hyperspace computer alerted him that the ship was ready to revert to regular space, Ikaros flexed his shoulders and charged the shields, ready to raise as soon as the _Avenger _appeared inside the normal universe. He also let the interface take him to the drone bays.

_Be ready, but don't launch, but be ready, I may need you._

Ikaros whispered into the drones, he felt them warm up, the explosive charges primed and their targeting and networking systems were ready.

The _Avenger _ripped into normal space, heading into the darkness taking time to rid itself of the extra speed from hyperspace, that was to be expected after all Ikaros had pressed them far beyond their specifications. The _Avenger's _sensors reported that there were no ships in the vicinity, after a second sweep on the sensors Ikaros speed towards the third planet, he deactivated the shields but kept the capacitors charged.

The _Avenger _moved down through the atmosphere towards the largest mountain range, although sensors didn't show anything Ikaros knew what was there and he needed to find it. Ikaros flew by the range before finding the correct area to land, he already knew the area from his ascension, however he just needed to check, it's always better to check.

The _Avenger _pitched backwards, the forward section pulled up as landing gear extended from the bottom, touching down gently, the landing gear dipped as the engines cooled down. A hatched opened from the underbelly and a walkway extended, Ikaros walked down the hatch and gazed up at the peaks, as soon as he was clear of the hatch he took the remote from his pocket sending the appropriate mental command. The walkway went up into the ship and the hatch closed.

Ikaros started to hike up the slope, he was going to take a while to get up there.

* * *

Rodney rose from his slumber, he could here Sam saying something through the radio.

"Sam this is McKay, what's going on it's…" Rodney checked his watch. "08:00 and I only turned in five hours ago, so what do you want."

"_I don't care Rodney, you need to get up here now!"_

With that Sam signed off, Rodney grumbled and rolled out of his bed and got up, he quickly pulled of his top and washed before putting on his uniform and leaving his room fully aware that he probably didn't look any good.

As he ran up the stairwell into the control room he could see the Stargate's event horizon open and Sam was standing in front of the plasma screen.

"Ah, he's here, Dr McKay Major Lorne's team has found something." Sam turned to him and Rodney saw the dark circles under her eyes. "And if you think you've got it bad _you've got no idea. _The IOA have had me up all night, their representative was here and I'm now wishing for the days I actually carried a gun. So don't start."

McKay nodded startled by the venom in Sam's voice before walking into the cameras focus.

"Alright Major, what've you found?" Rodney felt his eyelids droop as Lorne rolled his eyes.

"_I think I'd better let Captain Cadman explain." _Lorne smirked as he went off camera.

Rodney suddenly straightened and to the amusement of the control staff ran his hands through his hair trying to bring some sense of order before straightening his jacket. He looked up and smiled as Laura entered the frame.

"_Hi Rodney, look I'm sorry for dragging you out of bed." _Laura smiled at him.

Rodney in turn blushed slightly and became very flustered. "Don't worry, it's nothing," Some of the control staff were sniggering in a desperate bid not to laugh.

"_Look Rodney I know you well enough to be aware of the fact that you go through every mission report from both Atlantis and the SGC on the Ancients like a neurotic, so I won't bother giving you details. We've found an outpost here containing a device identical to the Dakara wespon."_

Rodney's eyes widened in shook and just a bit of hope, if that device was anything like the weapon SG-1 had found on Dakara they could end the Asuran replicator threat once and for all.

* * *

Radek hunched over his laptop checking and rechecking the data from the traveller's Ancient warship, Sam and McKay had put him in charge of repairing the ship, well Sam had, Rodney didn't stop trying to 'help' him. But to Radek Sam had put him in charge and he didn't want to let her down, this was a chance to prove that he was just as valuable as Rodney, in fact Rake was going through the ships command logs to find what amounted to the ships normal status, in the process he'd found the ships name, it was called the _Illuminasta. _Apparently she'd been part of a taskforce sent to secure a place called the Store, although any further reference had been omitted from the ships log, Radek was working on the assumption that it was something that had been classified. He was brought by his mussing by someone nocking at the door, Radek turned to see Rodney standing in the door way sporting his hair completely spiked like a rock star, evidently he hadn't slept well.

"Look Radek have you got a moment?" Rodney looked uncertain and his hands were fidgeting nervously, that wasn't a good sign.

"It depends what for," Radek narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Look, I know I don't exactly give you a lot of respect for what you do around here, but you are a brilliant scientist and to be honest, sometimes you make me feel insecure," Rodney took a deep breath before continuing. "Something that we learn here is to work as a team and I just want you to know that."

Rodney turned and left leaving a speechless Radek staring after him.

When Rodney reached a point beyond Radek's visual he leant back against wall and closed his eyes. _Laura was right; it does feel better to talk about some of these things. _Rodney tried to stop thinking about exactly where that train of thought would leave given his conflicted feelings towards Laura.

He took a deep breath before heading to the armoury; Sam was letting him go alone to meet up with Lorne's team. Rodney walked into the room and pulled the Kevlar plated tac-vest on followed by hooking his P-90 on and strapping a side arm to his leg and pulling on a GDO.

Laura's face once again swam up to his mind's eye spurning Rodney to actually run from the room towards the 'gate.

* * *

Shepperd sat in the _Illuminasta's _control chair as he brought the bulk of the three kilometre long ship down next to one of Atlantis' piers, John could see the sensor feed in his mind, by Earth terms Atlantis was barely bigger than a town being eight kilometres from pier to pier, however with every building interconnected it contained the same internal space as New York. Shepperd's area for landing was a space between two of the larger piers, John focused the _Illuminasta's _engines as he gently nestled the _Illuminasta _between the piers, obviously Ancient ships had carried this manoeuvre before as new systems were powering up along the piers as walkways extended and power conduits opened for repairs. Shepperd's eyes opened as the chair moved out of the reclined position.

"This is Shepperd, docking complete," he kept the comms open in order to keep touch with the operations tower.

"_Alright John, get up here now, it's urgent." _Sam signed off and Shepperd winced, she was clearly in bad mood.

He reluctantly got out of the chair and headed towards the nearest transporter, as he entered he prepared to press the area beside one of the docking airlocks before noticing that the ship schematics had zoomed out and the cities transporters were interlaced, John frowned before pressing the transporter nearest to the control room.

When the doors opened he found that he had indeed arrived in the control tower, he shrugged before heading up into the 'gate room and up into control area, he could see Davidson, Caldwell and Ellis already in Sam's office. John was prepared to wait when Sam caught his eye and gestured him to come over.

As he walked in he saw Dr Zelinka sitting on one of the padded seats, John looked up at Sam as the glass door into the room sealed shut.

"I've asked you all here to discuss how defendable Atlantis is at the present moment," Sam looked round at each and everyone in the office. "Back in the Milky Way the Lucien Alliance has kicked up a lot of trouble with the Aschen, together they've been systematically attacking Jaffa shipping and have launched biological attacks on our allies."

"And this affects us how?" John felt a great sense of foreboding, he was missing something big.

"The SGC's intelligence has located a staging post for their fleets, General O'Neill and Bra'tac want to launch a pre-emptive strike, but the only ship we have in the Galaxy is the _Sun Tzu, _and the Chinese won't release their ship for use." Sam took a deep breath before looking to Colonel Ellis. "The _Apollo's _been ordered to join a joint-Jaffa task force."

Colonel Ellis looked confused. "But the _Daedalus _is in a far better condition than the _Apollo_."

Sam nodded. "That's why, you'll have three weeks on route to get your shields and weapons up to specs."

Ellis nodded understanding a little, O'Neill wanted to make sure Atlantis could be defended.

"So, what've we got people?"

Zelinka looked up. "We have a full store of drones in the city and so has the _Illuminasta. _Overall twenty traveller ships have been updated and I've got engineers from the disassembled traveller ships installing point defense particle canons for point defence alongside the railguns."

Sam nodded turning to Caldwell and Davidson.

"_Daedalus _is under no condition to enter battle, our shields are still only charging to 50% and only two of our plasma beam weapons are currently operational." Caldwell looked reticent. "Dr Novak thinks that we'll be back up in under a week, she said if Hermiod were here we'd probably be done by now, but…"

Caldwell trailed off; it just didn't need to said.

"_Odyssey's _ZeePM is charged and all systems are ready except for the beam transports, we've been working on it."

Sam nodded and bit her lip.

* * *

Laura sat at one of the Ancient control panel, the outpost contained a curious mix of the older Ancient controls, the kind that she seen in Dr Jackson's files on the time loop machine and the more advanced controls identical to those on Atlantis. She rubbed her eyes before getting up from the console and fingering her P-90 as she walked from the room to look out on the tropical rainforest. As she saw Rodney walking with Lorne beside him she felt a smile grace her lips, a smile that swiftly turned into a laugh as she saw the state of McKay's hair.

Rodney walked through the rainforest wondering why he'd agreed to go along with this until he heard Laura's laugh, he looked up to see her standing in a door way embedded in a mountain side, her mouth wide open smiling as she laughed wildly. That laugh Rodney decided was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard, not that he'd ever, ever admit that. Spurred on by her laugh Rodney picked up his pace running the last few meters straightening in front of her.

"What's so funning _Captain?" _Rodney went with the snide comment.

"It's just how adorable you look with your hair like that," Laura reached out and ruffled Rodney's hair causing him to blush bright red.

Major Lorne watching the two of them felt a little sick, couldn't they just get a room.

Rodney was sure he'd brain had stopped, she thought he was _adorable._

"Come on Rodney, or are you just going to stand gawping at me," Laura smirked as she took hold of Rodney's tac-vest pulling him into the lab with her.

* * *

Ikaros stayed along the walls inside the facility, his energy pistol identical to those used by the Asurans was holstered in his belt but the force lance of the kind that was standard issue on Lantean warships like the Aurora was in his hand. Unlike the energy pistol it wasn't a weapon in itself, it was designed to amplify normal Lantean abilities, from what Ikaros knew the Ori staffs used by their Priors worked in a similar way.

Ikaros neared a door, he raised the force lance as he mentally opened the door, not that he expected anyone to be inside, after all if this facility was compromised then the galaxy would be in a sorry state. He entered the room, as expected no one was there, in the centre of the room was a crystal slab on top of a reinforced trinium-naquadah-carbon-neutronium alloy shielding the crystal circuitry. Ikaros stepped forward and activated the facility, the consoles fired up immediately as well as the lights, there was a deep rumbling in the geothermal power systems came online followed by the subspace capacitors. The crystal slab before him fired up showing the _Avenger_ in its position on top of the mountain range, Ikaros sifted through the menus opening up the section he wanted. The systems highlighted all of the _Avenger's _damage and systems to be upgraded.

Ikaros knew that seven million years ago when his people called themselves the Alterra their civilisation was spread over multiple galaxies their ships had some of the most powerful hyperdrives ever built. However after the plague and the alliance's dissolution and the resettlement of the Pegasus galaxy they were limited to a single galaxy, this allowed them to downgrade their hyperdrives as they only needed to be powerful enough to get to the nearest sector jump gate, or supergate as the humans called them, they had a flair for the dramatic like that.

Ikaros was about to reinstall a more advanced hyperdrive capable of meeting his needs and installing a larger drone storage bay. Ikaros then run a scan to check if there were any potentia left lying around, he knew it wasn't likely but it was possible.

* * *

Meanwhile far away in the Pegasus galaxy the Ausran rebel city was full of activity; they were producing potentia so as to build up a reserve in case of an attack by either the wraith or the Asuran forces. The fabricator ship was building other fortifications, namely a network of defence satellites identical to those used during the first siege of Atlantis.

The Asuran in charge who'd let go of Dr Keller's form, she now wore a typical Asuran dress that seemed to hug her curves and her hair was now brown and wavy. She stood before Elizabeth.

"How are you?" she sat down before the human, her faced showed concern.

"Fine," Elizabeth smiled, however the Asuran merely raised an eyebrow. "Alright, I'm completely bored out of my mind, there's nothing to do!"

The Asuran smiled.

"I know," she passed Elizabeth an Asuran tablet. "I asked one of my contacts to do some digging on your original and I've found some inconsistencies in Oberoth's files. I'm not sure what it means but if you want to know whether she really died."

Elizabeth took the tablet and thanked the Asuran who nodded and left the room.

"_The truth isn't in some data from the collective,"_

Elizabeth looked sharply up to see a mirror image of herself standing on the balcony; she got up and sprinted to stand next to herself.

"What, who are you?" Elizabeth looked at her mirror image, still in the same suit as earlier.

"_You already know the answer to that question, I just want you to know that you won't be in my shadow, just be yourself."_

Elizabeth smiled at her mirror.

"I don't think so, I remember being you, all the things that you did. I'll never be able to live up to what you've done."

"_Remember back over four years during our stint as commander of the SGC?"_

Elizabeth nodded, agreeing with herself.

"_That one time when we questioned whether we really had what it took to run the program."_

Elizabeth nodded.

"_Remember what Daniel said: _'no one is, but you're the best person we've got who hasn't been through the 'gate. You stood up to Kindsy despite the fact that you hadn't any reason to trust us over them. I believe you're the right person for this job.' _You can help these people; just give it a try,"_

* * *

John felt searing pain in his back as Ronan drew the fighting stick to a sharp blow; he stumbled forward and tried to make a hit on Ronan only to be swatted like a fly.

"So I heard you and Keller…?" John went to try to distract Ronan through exploiting rumours he'd heard.

"What about me and Keller?" Ronan renewed his offensive, John'd evidently hit a nerve and he was unprepared as he knees buckled and he fell down. "It's my private business,"

He reached out a hand to help Shepperd up, groaning he took the hand and got up.

"Sorry," John watched as Ronan nodded and left the room.


	3. Chapter 3

Ikaros sat down inside the _Avenger's _control chair, the upgrades and repairs were done, he had to make an errand before he deactivated the facilities systems. The _Avenger _seemed to sing to him with joy as its systems were at full operational status for the first time in months. The course was laid in as the _Avenger _headed out to hyperspace.

* * *

Rodney typed furiously at the ancient display, even Laura couldn't pull him out of the zone now, even if she wanted to. According to the data from every console in the outpost the entire operating system for the device had been erased, Rodney rubbed his eyes.

"Okay, we know the Ancients used the Dakara device to recreate life in the Milky way after the plague," Laura looked up at him.

"Yes,"

Laura looked into his eyes as the cogs of Rodney's mind whirled.

"When they got here the used this device to create life in a similar manner," Rodney was starting to understand. "The device generates an energy wave that reduces things in its path to the constituent molecules, it's not powerful enough to disintegrate a planet, but it can wash away anything on its surface. I'm missing something, something important."

"Shields," Rodney looked sharply at Laura.

"What?"

"Well the shields we use on our ships and on Atlantis are an energy field right," Laura walked to stand in front of Rodney whose eyes were beginning to widen in realisation. "And elementary physics states that two equal and opposite waves cancel each other out"

"And the wraith would have all the data on Ancient shields they needed." Rodney's hands were fidgeting in excitement.

"So when the Ancients pulled out of the outpost they made sure it wouldn't work." Laura and Rodney both smiled at each other.

"So it's useless," the both jumped as Colonel Shepperd walked into the control area, his head was quirked to the side and he was smirking.

"No, not necessarily, we have the Atlantis database, and the data from the Dakara device, we should be able to recreate the operating sequence." Rodney didn't want to let go of the fact that this device was the only sliver of hope he'd had in weeks.

"What's your opinion Captain?" Shepperd was unconvinced; he knew that when Rodney fixated upon a single idea it was next to impossible to dissuade him.

"I agree with Rodney,"

Shepperd looked shocked at Laura's immediate response and the conviction behind it.

"Okay, I'll dial in to contact Sam,"

Once Shepperd had left Rodney turned to Laura sheer gratitude shone in his eyes.

"Thank you Laura," he smiled at her.

Laura smiled back. "Don't mention it, and I honestly hope that you're right,"

"Me too,"

They two went back to work at the computer stations.

* * *

Deep into the galactic void space ripped apart and the _Avenger _returned to normal space, the powerful sensors on its prow immediately found their target. Ikaros looked out of the force dome to see the wreck of the _Tria._

There were scorch marks all along the ship and whole areas that literally had no hull left, the hyperspace engines weren't just destroyed, they were literally gone. Structural members throughout the ship had given and the rings were less useful than lumps of naquadah. Ikaros had only one option if he wanted to get this done.

He moved the _Avenger _to just under a single meter from the top of the _Tria. _Ikaros reached through the inertial dampeners and pushed them outwards, the generators groaned in protest and pushed back, however Ikaros wasn't going to give up. After a few minutes of the field going backwards and forwards Ikaros had expanded them to encompass the entire vessel, he then activated the _Avenger's _tractor beam, the _Tria _suddenly leapt up and connected to the _Avenger_. Ikaros then closed his eyes and focused on the hyperdrive, even the more advanced drive he'd recently installed was being overtaxed, after an even greater protest the _Tria _was fully encompassed by both inertial dampening and a subspace field. Together the two ships entered the hyperspace vortex, the _Avenger _taking them back to where they'd come from.

* * *

"_Off world activation!"_ Walter called as General Landry ran down the stairs to stand behind him at the main console.

"What've we got Chief?" Landry looked over Walter's shoulder so he'd know anyway.

"Receiving an IDC now sir," Walter looked at the decryption spectrum. "It's SG-1 sir."

"Open the iris,"

They both watched as the titanium plates peeled back and the four man SG team came through, Teal'c and Cam first followed by Daniel and Vala, the former of which seemed to be doing his upmost to ignore the latter. Landry took the microphone in his hand.

"Dr Jackson please report to the briefing room immediately."

Daniel stopped and gazed up at Landry.

"Okay," Daniel a getaway before Vala started again as the others left to got to the infirmary for their routine check-up, he turned to give Teal'c a sympathetic look as he ran up to the briefing room.

Colonel Reynolds was waiting up there holding a folder in his arms.

"What's going on?" Daniel looked between the file and Reynolds as he passed the file to him.

"We found an Ancient structure on P9X-435, we've dated it to only 8,000 years old, the Ancients must have built it after they left Pegasus."

Daniel looked up as he realized the ramifications of the buildings discovery.

* * *

Ikaros walked away from the glass hanger bay where the _Tria _had been moored, the automated systems had already began to repair and upgrade the ship based on his specifications from the facilities database. Ikaros began to head out of the control room to head for the _Avenger._ Just the external repairs for the _Tria_ would take six months let alone the modifications to the hyperdrive, shields and weapons he wanted to make.

Shortly afterwards the _Avenger _pulled up and sped into orbit before jumping into hyperspace, he already knew the next location to head to before he made his return known.

* * *

In orbit of a gas giant _Biarmaland_ floated surrounded by three Aurora class warships. General Korceanat stood behind Myra, his head leant so far forward that he was practically resting on her shoulder.

"How much longer till the repairs are done?"

Myra sighed. "They'll be done when there done, for the last time you badgering the teams won't speed them up. It's a miracle we figured out a way to do this without landing the city as it is."

An alarm blazed from the other side of the deck.

"Detecting five wraith hive ships entering the system, they're firing."

The deck shook and flashed blue light.

"How many potentia have been plugged in?" Korceanat asked gripping the console as another salvo impacted.

"Only one," Myra was about to say more as the console behind her sparked and flashed.

"Tell our ships to leave now!" Korceanat was already moving to the control chair as the three escort Aurora's entered hyperspace.

Korceanat's eyes closed as he reclined into the interface, the cities stardrive flashed as _Biarmaland _moved as fast as he could away from the ships giving chase. The chair feed was interrupted as the room vibrated with another series of impacts.

"Potentia at 50%, engineers report that well need two hours to reinstall a second." She recoiled from her console as it exploded crystal fragments sprayed into Myra's face.

Upon seeing this Korceanat's face hardened, he'd had enough of this.

_Biarmaland _pulled up and spun so its towers faced the nearest hive ship and shot behind it in a manoeuvre that something so fragile should never have been able of completing intact.

On the nearest pier a hexagonal hatch opened and brilliant orange light began to shine through as thousands of drones shot out in a massive swarm like a serpent that streamed towards the hive, just under a kilometre from the hull they split into smaller streams and ripped into the hives hull, the Ancients had developed drones in order to counteract shields. When the wraith had built their ships they'd designed them to specifically counter the advantage drones provided, however in large numbers they were still effective.

It took a few seconds for the drones to break through, the glowing serpents then ripped through the hull superheating gas as the outer hull burnt up, the other four hives broke off the attack as _Biarmaland _entered hyperspace.

* * *

Major Marks sat at his console looking out at the armada of ships in orbit of Lantea, although it looked impressive the numerous traveller ships, while now armed with Asgard pulsed plasma weaponry their shields were only a few times more powerful that a Goa'uld ha'tak and their hulls were incredibly brittle due to centuries of use and now the IOA had managed to recall the _Apollo _leaving Atlantis defended by little more than hulks of metal.

"_This is Colonel Ellis to Atlantis flight requesting permission to depart,"_

Sam's voice came back through the radio.

"_Colonel Ellis, permission granted, safe trip."_

The _Apollo_ pulled away from the formation of ships and jumped to hyperspace, Colonel Davidson turned in his chair to face Marks.

"Take the bridge; I'm going to see to the F-302 wing Ellis left behind." Davidson tiredly pulled himself from the command thrown and headed out to the hanger decks.

Marks got up from his seat and sat in the command thrown, he'd been here more often than not these days.

* * *

Sam had just got back to her office when Radek came running in, she sighed and got to her feet.

"What's happened?" Sam liked to feel she was ready for anything, but the truth was she wasn't.

"I have good news and bad news," Radek looked apologetic.

Sam grimaced.

"Bad first, I'll probably need cheering up."

"Okay," Rakek nodded. "The wraith Guide is demanding to be moved somewhere else, apparently Seeker tried to actually feed on him before the marines stopped him."

Sam rolled her eyes but nodded. "Alright, I'll have him moved to a set of guest quarters somewhere on one of the piers out of the way, he's been behaving himself. What's the good news?"

"The _Illuminasta's _main power core is operational to 50% and we'll have the cutting beams up in a few hours. Also despite their disagreements we've made some progress on locating the specific coding in the replicator base code to deactivate the attack command."

Sam felt herself smiling.

"Good work Radek,"

Radek nodded in response and returned to his duties, Sam then saw Teyla standing in the doorway.

"Teyla come in,"

Teyla walked into the room and carefully took a seat.

"I was wondering if anything had been heard about the Athosians recently,"

Sam shook her head sadly at the pregnant woman.

"I'm sorry Teyla," Sam bit her lip. "Look, the second I hear something I tell you,"

"Thank you Colonel," Teyla got back to her feet, Sam followed her.

"Call me Sam,"

Teyla nodded and thanked her.

"Look Teyla, if you ever want to talk to someone about anything, I'm available," Sam felt terrible for the woman, although in Teyla's culture it was quite clear that women continued to fight and work till late in their pregnancy on Earth and according to IOA policy pregnant women weren't allowed to go to the field.

"Thank you, Sam, I may take you up on that,"

* * *

Ronan walked through the darkened corridors in Atlantis till he reached Dr Keller's quarters; he moved his hand to signal the door chime, after a call from inside and some rustling the door panels moved apart and Jennifer stood there in a flowery sleeveless top and blue jeans.

"Ah, Ronan," she bit her lip and looked down at herself, critically examining her outfit.

"Don't worry, you look great," Ronan reached out his arm to the Doctor who was now blushing.

She nervously reached out and took it.

"Just so you know, I haven't been on a date in a few years,"

"Don't worry, I haven't either," he joked remembering his days as a runner.

* * *

Rodney rubbed his eyes; he'd been sitting at the consoles for hours.

"Laura, you got anything?"

Laura shook her head.

"Nope, nothing," she signed and turned to Rodney who was rubbing his neck, Laura smirked her eyes shining mischievously.

Rodney was trying to rub a cramp out of his neck when a pair of soft hands started to massage the back of his neck.

"That better _Meredith?" _Laura whispering in his ear, she smirked when Rodney bit back a moan.

Rodney barely held back a moan as her hot breath glistened his ear, the cramp in his neck long forgotten, even the use of his first name couldn't stop him enjoying this.

"You know," Laura shifted to his other ear. "We may not be able to use the device, but the power supply for it must be pretty big. I mean we never found out what powered the Dakara weapon, but based on what we observed of its effects might suggest a ZeePM."

Rodney nodded, his lips had gone dry and his heart was thumping, in the corner of his eye he could see Laura's smirk behind her red-gold hair.

"Yeah… well, we have the… erm life signs sensor that can… ah detect energy readings"

Rodney's eyes rolled shut, he felt proud that he'd been able to get that out from his mouth.

Laura nodded and pulled back from him stealthily removing the detector from Rodney's tac vest.

"Okay, I'm getting a reading from further in, you game _Meredith?"_ Laura watched as McKay shakily nodded at opened his eyes to follow her deeper into the installation.

* * *

General Korceanat sat in his office going over damage reports from the battle; he'd sent the escort ships on to a planet that'd been prepared for a long time.

"General we have a problem," Myra was standing before him. Korceanat gestured at a seat.

She nodded and sat down.

"We've been going over the hyperspace engine reports and we've been getting anomalous data synchronization returns from the Potentia core and the generators themselves. We've used up twice as much energy so far than we should have."

Korceanat leaned forward in his chair.

"So what do you recommend?"

"We need to drop out and physically inspect all of the generator relays one by one for damage."

Korceanat winced; the time it would take to inspect all of the relays would leave them completely vulnerable.

"I want as many people to assist as possible, prepare for drop out."

* * *

The _Avenger _dropped out of hyperspace once more in orbit of a jungle planet, Ikaros ran a few scans of the planet to confirm the knowledge he'd gathered while ascended. Nothing but a few primitive human tribes evolutionary adjacent to Neanderthals, and there under a mountain chain was an outpost left behind by his people. He remembered when his mother had complained about the protocols when abandoning outposts when he was younger, the specific protocol that annoyed her was the restart protocol; when the Ancients abandoned outposts they left behind the Potentia like on Praclarush so that the installations could be brought back to life easily.

Ikaros couldn't ring down so he was forced to use the beam transporters, with a golden flash of light he appeared in the middle of the jungle and headed towards the ground entrance. As he walked however he heard a twig snap behind him, closing his eyes he reached out telepathically to find, nothing, no intelligence or sentience just animalistic fury, Ikaros ducked and rolled forward as the Neanderthal charged a club raised in his hand. Twisting around he saw the Neanderthal turning to face him, he raised the club and brought it down to hit Ikaros.

Ikaros raised his right arm to block the impact and twisted his fist to grab hold of the Neanderthal's arm and pulled him forward, as the Neanderthal stretched forward Ikaros reeled up and kicked him in the chest, as the Neanderthal fell to the ground Ikaros chopped his right hand down to strike at the centre of the Neanderthal's spinal column. Once the Neanderthal was unconscious Ikaros continued into the base. It didn't take long for him to locate the bases control chair, easing into it the chair roared to life reclining as crystal panels glowed aqua blue, he pulled a mental status report from the Potentia, below 2%. Ikaros still got out of the chair and removed the antediluvian power cell, even at 2% it was a fairly distant charge of energy.

Ikaros jogged out of the outpost cradling the Potentia like a new-born child, once he reached a safe distance from the naquadah filled cave Ikaros sent the signal to transport back to the _Avenger._

Arriving on the ship Ikaros stored the Potentia alongside the others he'd already located, even collectively they only charged to 60% between the ten modules he'd recovered. He headed up to the bridge rubbing his eyes, as he entered the deck though he realised that something wasn't right, when he'd left the chair was facing the door, now it was facing the force dome. He moved his hand to the force lance ready to react to whatever threat the person in the chair posed, however when the chair turned to face him he was completely shocked.

It was a woman wearing a black skin tight Lantean nanite combat suit, of the type used by Lantean intelligence agents, at the centre of her uniform was a crystal personal shield emitter. But that wasn't what made him stop, no, that was her long brown hair, her familiar smile, cute nose and striking blue eyes.

"Mum?" Ikaros stood there blinking at her.

"Sorry son, I seem to be in your chair," she got up from the chair and stood before her son.

"I thought the … others wouldn't let you return?" Ikaros' mind had completely stopped working some time ago when he'd first seen her.

"Well not at the moment, your little trick with the Charybdis device gave you enough power to circumvent the will of the others near enough all together, the rest of us have to deal with the high council." Ikaros' mother said sadly. "The rest of us, like Orlin still have to deal with them, when he returned to corporeal form in order to hold the knowledge of what the Ori were doing he couldn't assume his Ancient body dooming him to a fate worse than death. But whatever happens I'll watch over you, the council can rot in hell if they try to stop me."

Ikaros chocked back a sob as his mother dissolved into a white mist that disappeared into the Aether.

* * *

Deep underground Laura and Rodney tracked down the energy trace to behind a thick black metal bulkhead.

"Anything?" Laura peered over Rodney's shoulder at the screen of the Ancient detector.

"No nothing yet, the encryption seems to be based on a series of Ancient knowledge puzzles rather than normal mathematical bases. It will take some time," Rodney typed on the touchscreen for a few seconds before smiling. "Got it,"

Rodney seemed incredibly smug as the door split into two panels that slid apart.

"Yeah, you opened a door Rodney; it's nothing to write home about,"

Rodney scowled at her as they walked through the door, both of their P-90s raised with the torches turned on. As they entered all of the lights came on followed by a bank of computer consoles, at the centre of the chamber were two metal cylinders that were two meters in diameter.

"I think we've found the power source," Laura and Rodney followed the cylinders up, they towered up more than twenty meters.

"Yup," Rodney nodded staring upwards.

* * *

In orbit of Lantea from the fires of the atmosphere the _Illuminasta _rose into orbit, Radek sat in the engine room going over the data from the main power core, he still wasn't sure about some of the patch jobs that'd been made.

"Colonel Shepperd, ease up on the left thruster, I'm reading a slight overload in the drive bus," Zelinka held his hand on the radio in his ear.

"_I got it,"_

The thruster slowed as the ship entered formation.

"Okay Shepperd, that's it."

The _Illuminasta _slowed as it entered formation beside the Odyssey and Daedalus.

* * *

_Biarmaland _spun on its axis as four wraith hives fired their weapons on a single area of shielding while the cruiser escorts fired on the stardrive panels.

Korceanat reconnected with the cities drone weapons as the control room bathed in sparks.

"General, you better hurry; the current potentia will be depleted before a new one can be installed." Myra shouted over the explosions.

Korceanat winced and nodded as all three drone launchers on the larger piers opened, orange light glowed from within, followed by three streams of hundreds of thousands of drones.

All three streams grouped together into a single massive serpent that lashed out at the closest hive ship, dozens were lost in seconds as the drones detonated breaking through the hull, the hive ship however was also destroyed.

Korceanat winced as the potentia's power output dropped below 20%; this was going to end badly if he couldn't take down the hive ships now.

He swarmed the drones to take down the other hive ships in sequence; he then transferred the target to the cruisers.

The glowing orange streams poured into the cruisers, melting through bioorganic hull armour. The first few were destroyed in seconds however the others began kamikaze runs on the city. The drones moved to intercept, taking out all but one and exhausting the supply, more drones sped from the launcher however it was too late as the cruiser collided with the bottom of _Biarmaland's _shields, exploding in a massive fireball.

Korceanat was thrown from the chair, his head smashed into one of the consoles, he vaguely say Myra run forwards to help him up, that was till he saw one of the guards slip out, at that point Korceanat left his body to digitally follow him.

Korceanat saw the guard enter the cells where Oberoth was being held.

"_Stop him… stop Oberoth…" _

* * *

Oberoth sat in his cell; it'd taken all of his mental energy just to overcome one guard. As the doors opened Oberoth smiled and got to his feet, the force field deactivated and Oberoth stood before the guard, faster than a blink Oberoth's hand was inside the guard's forehead. Oberoth then removed his hand as the guard broke down to his constituent nanites.

Oberoth broke into a sprint to get away from Korceanat, as he reached a small transport ship he found an officer guarding it.

The officer moved to subdue Oberoth before he reached the end of the corridor, however Oberoth was faster, he slammed his fist into the officer's stomach before bringing his hand into the officer's forehead however, this was when Oberoth was outmatched, the officer grabbed Oberoth's arm and pulled his hand out of the officer's forehead.

* * *

Korceanat just rounded the corridor as he saw Commander Olson collide with the wall as Oberoth entered the star hopper.

The teardrop shaped ship left the city and entered hyperspace before anyone could react.


End file.
